*
He had found something himself, just as the sun was giving out its last, best light before dropping into evening and sudden night. All the shadows were long, the light soft and yellow, not yet orange, not yet red. And he saw her, standing in the middle of a field, smiling at him. He couldn’t believe it. She began to walk towards him, still smiling, just as she had that other time, and he went forward to meet her, until all at once he pulled up sharply. It was as if he’d fallen asleep and been woken by his head jerking back. He was standing alone in the middle of a surrounding sea of deep grass.
The sun was travelling right on the rim of the horizon. Way off in the distance was the official balloon, drifting freely along in the lovely air, much too far away to see him down there or to wonder about the significance of a shot.
It had been a trick. They had fooled him. It wasn’t Millie at all, and now he was caught. But it wasn’t going to work. He’d read and heard about plenty of men who came to Africa to seek an outer reflection of their own primitive impulses, and who ended up confronting the animal world in some silly way—unprepared, romanticized—and so died. He knew all about the death wish and he knew he didn’t have it. He wanted to get out of there. And he’d take life at any price, on any terms, no question about it.
The grasses encompassed him like a bowl of silence ready to echo anything that came from him. Every slight movement he made caused a distinct sound of unmistakable importance. For an instant he thought again that all his actions might be obliterated by his own panic, but the fear left him as soon as he realized what he had to do. He turned around quickly and began to stride back the way he had come.
From in front of him rose a low, reverberating growl. First on one side, then on the other, then in the centre: prolonged, rattling snarls like anticipatory drumrolls.
He turned again. He would walk back through the field the same way he had started. It would take him away from the road but if he could reach the higher ground, he might even spend the night up a tree. He went ahead, trying not to think about what was in back of him, whether they were following now or standing still.
As he moved forward, he heard behind him a throaty rumbling, succeeded by heavy grunts and impatient breathing into which the full voice would come for a moment and then fade back to a humming mutter. He kept walking steadily, not changing his pace, holding his rifle ready and with the safety catch off. The weapon was not too heavy, not too light; give them a sporting chance. But they never gave you one. This was nature, there was no way you could cleanse or make it pretty. He wanted to run.
The noises behind him began to keep pace with his movements. He couldn’t tell if it was only one lion, or more than one. He didn’t even know if it was the right one, looking any of the many ways he had seen it: a black shape in the twilight, a brown torso flying, a moving thing, dark or light as the sun struck its coat the colour of sand.
He thought about his brother, the one they had loved the best because he was the one who had died and couldn’t disappoint anyone. Forget all that. That was over and he wanted to live. He should have finished with that long before. It had kept him from living his life and prevented him from making another person happy. It had brought him here. All his studies and researches had in the end yielded only that much knowledge, useless since it came too late. The firearm he held to his shoulder was more important than any of it now, and even that wouldn’t help. There was no way he was ever going to get out of that field.
He told himself that he never would have believed it could end like this. He wanted the choice, or if not that, at least the preparation. He’d certainly never dreamed of it this way, never. Yet it also seemed to him, now the time had come, that all his life he’d been there in that field, always, listening and watching.
At last, from only a few yards ahead of him, he heard a deep cough and knew it was the same one. He stood still. There was nothing to be afraid of any more. This was all there was ever going to be.
He waited. He saw Millie and his family, his past, the life he would never be able to get to because it lay outside the field. He looked down the rifle barrel and held his breath. The world in front of him was made of pale grasses, nothing else.
About the Author
Rachel Ingalls grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has had various jobs, from theatre dresser and librarian to publisher’s reader. She is a confirmed radio and film addict and has lived in London since 1965. She is the author of several novels and collections of short stories.
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2013
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Rachel Ingalls, 1983
The right of Rachel Ingalls to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–29985–0
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